No One Likes Funerals
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: Takes place after Emily's "death" and contains a couple of spoilers for that story line. Elle shows up at Emily's funeral to support her old friends and she and Reid began to meet regularly, which leads to results that they never saw coming.


No one liked funerals and Elle wasn't sure why she had even come to this one, really. She hadn't even known Emily Prentiss. And she hadn't parted with the Behavioral Analysis Unit on what might exactly be called good terms. But still, she wanted to be there for her friends, Emily's teammates who had been her teammates as well. Even so, she kept to the back or edge of the crowd, watching the five people that she knew for signs that they might benefit from knowing her presence.

While JJ and Hotch seemed oddly unsettled, they seemed to be doing well enough on their own. Elle was afraid that she might so more harm than good to an already overwrought Garcia, who was currently being comforted by Morgan, who – by Morgan standards – looked to be handling things only slightly better than the woman that he held. That left Spencer Reid, who was standing miserably off to the side like Elle was. His social awkwardness and often childlike approach to things – tragedies such as this – that he didn't know how to handle had left him currently alone and more miserable looking than Elle had ever seen him in.

So she walked over and laid a hand on his arm, the look in her eyes conveying more pity than her words would have. His eyes, already swimming with unshed tears, widened when he registered who she was. Neither one of them said a word; she only pulled her old friend into a hug and let him sob on her shoulder until the sobs were reduced to dry shudders.

At the end of the ceremony, she told him quietly that she would like to meet up with him again soon to check up on him. Throughout the whole afternoon, he had remained mostly silent and cheerless, but at her declaration he managed a small smile and he nodded vigorously.

So, two weeks later they met up at a nearby coffee shop. Even in his still-grieving state, it had surprised them both how easily the conversation had flowed between them. Spencer had even left with a smile on his face. After another two weeks they met up at the same place. After that the visits had become weekly, as long as a case didn't get in the way.

Elle's only objective had been to help him through his grief over the loss of Emily, but after three months, as he began to truly move on with his life, she realized that there was something much more, much deeper, going on between the two of them. And it shocked her that she was okay with that. No, she was more than okay with it, she was thrilled by it.

Eventually, they went elsewhere besides "their" coffee shop. For example, Spencer had taken her to a really nice restaurant on more than one occasion and like the gentleman that he was, insisted on paying.

She had told him then that she would only allow him to pay for her meal if they were out on a date, so he had informed her that she could consider it as such if she so preferred. That had made her want to laugh and kiss him, and she had done both with surprisingly little hesitation. From there on out they were together as much as they could be. And then suddenly they had moved in together.

And then, a year after Emily's funeral – which had turned out to be a fake – he took her totally by surprise – her profiling skills be hung – and asked her to marry him.

No one liked funerals, but Elle would be forever grateful that she had gone to the fake funeral of Emily Prentiss. After all – if she could say nothing else about the whole mess with Emily – she had gotten a husband out of it.

* * *

**Another challenge from Challenge King. I hoped you liked it. It's a little different though, because I came at it with the idea of seeing if I could write a story without using any dialogue, although I'm not sure that I quite achieved that goal. My next story is going to be another one-shot for my Leah/Reid series to mark it being my hundredth story. Anyway... reviews equal love, unicorns, candy, and rainbows!:)**


End file.
